Edge of Betrayal (11 page)

“Can you break it?”

“Not that kind of code. It’s a program. Software.”

“What does it do?”

She read through the few lines she could make out. “Looks like some kind of random word/number-combination generator.”

“What’s it for?”

“It’s not very sophisticated. Any college kid could have programmed it. My guess is he was using it to create passwords.”

“Why not just make up something?”

Mira shrugged. “Maybe he was worried that anything he made up could be guessed. The better question is what was he protecting?”

The laptop screen blinked on, waiting for a password to log in to a user’s account.

“Can you hack it?” asked Adam.

“Probably.” She used one of the USB cords sitting nearby to attach her phone. After making a secure connection to the network back at the Edge, she accessed her decryption software and let it do its magic. Less than three minutes later, the current account opened up, giving her access. “What do you want to know?”

“Check mail first.”

She did. “Looks like he’s been getting orders from someone—someone who told him to go to your house and kill you.”

“Can you tell who sent the e-mail?”

She pulled up the proper program and tried to trace the IP address. “They hid their tracks pretty well. I might be able to figure it out given enough time, but it wouldn’t be fast.”

“What else can you find?”

There wasn’t much on the hard drive, but she did notice one folder filled with large files. “There are some videos here. They’re all password protected, too. Hold on.”

She started downloading the files to a server at the Edge, just in case she and Adam had to flee. While she did that, she focused on the most recent file and ran it through her electronic lockpick.

A recorded image of a video chat from two days ago popped up on the screen. In the small window was the man who’d attacked Adam’s house. In the main window was a beautiful blond woman in a designer suit. She had an elegant look about her, with her hair in a fancy updo that showed off dainty diamond studs.

Mira hit “play.”

The woman spoke. “Did you find him?”

“No,” said the man. “There’s no sign that he was taken anywhere. But I went to the cemetery. His grave was empty.”

“I told you he was alive. They’re holding him, likely torturing him for information. Find him. Now.”

“I’ve looked. Wherever they’ve got him hidden, it’s not nearby.”

“Adam will know where to look. Find him. Question him.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And, Kyle?”

“Yes?”

“If you don’t find where they’ve taken Dr. Sage by Friday, the next call I make is going to be with the man I use to clean up loose ends.”

“I’m not a loose end.”

“You will be if you don’t find Dr. Sage. Understood?”

Mira didn’t hear the rest. Her mind was reeling too hard and fast for her to concentrate on anything other than what she’d already heard.

They were talking about finding her father. Who was dead.

Wasn’t he?

His grave was empty.

Mira hadn’t made any of the final arrangements for her father. Payton had taken care of everything for her. He’d told her he didn’t want her to worry herself or go to any trouble for the man who’d ruined her life and killed her mother.

His grave was empty.

She looked up at Adam. “Is my father still alive?”

The look on Adam’s face was ferocious. Dark shadows lurked under his eyes and along his sharp cheekbones. “That woman is Ruby Rypan.”

He’d said it like she should know the name, but she didn’t. “Who’s that?”

“Your father’s assistant. She ran the show whenever he was busy working in the labs. I’ve only met her once, but it was clear to me that she was as dangerous as she was devoted.”

“To Dad?”

“Absolutely.”

“And she thinks he’s alive.”

“So it appears,” said Adam.

His grave was empty.

“Why would Dad’s grave be empty if he were dead?”

“Did he ever experiment on himself? Could someone have stolen his body for research?”

“I can’t imagine him ever risking damage to himself. That was what his family was for.”

Adam swallowed hard enough that she could see his throat move, choking down his anger. “We need answers.”

Wheels in Mira’s head started to turn. Vague, cloudy memories of the night her father was killed came back to her. “Everyone was airlifted out of that barn last year. Were you on the helicopter with my dad’s body?”

“I don’t know. I’d lost too much blood by that point and was unconscious.”

She rubbed the scar where the bullet that had nearly killed her had left its mark. “I was taken away in the first flight. Payton was directing people—ordering them around.”

“Then we should talk to him.”

“He made all the funeral arrangements. I never saw Dad’s body. Not even at the funeral. Closed casket. Payton said he didn’t want me seeing him like that.” She looked up at Adam, horrified at the thought that passed through her mind. “He ordered the airlift. He could have taken Dad anywhere. Even someplace private where they could patch him up and force him to talk.”

“He would be an invaluable informational asset.”

That was it. The truth. It made too much sense for it to be anything else. Dad was alive, and Payton had known it all along. He’d let her grieve, let her think it was over and that she was finally safe.

Adam must have seen something in her expression. He reached for her, but she couldn’t stand the idea of
being touched right now. She took a long step back, hitting the blue tarp wall.

Something tugged at the back of her calf. A trip line.

A small pop sounded nearby. Smoke began pouring from the computer. A strobe light flashed overhead, silent but bright enough to wake anyone nearby.

Adam grabbed her arm. “We’ve set off an alarm. Run.”

A
dam hauled Mira out past the tarps. She went where he led, but she was too pliant for his peace of mind.

Her father was still alive. The news had shaken her badly. As much as he wished he could sit her down and discuss it until she felt more calm and steady, there simply wasn’t time.

Thick, black smoke billowed from under the stairwell door. A quick check of the one at the south end of the building revealed the same. There was no electricity to power the elevators, but whoever had set the trip lines would have had some way to safety. They wouldn’t have wanted to be trapped here on the third floor with no means of escape.

Adam peered out the windows, hoping for some kind of fire escape. There was none.

If he was living here, how would he have slipped out?

There was a large plastic tub sitting by the elevator doors. He raced to it and dumped it out.

A crowbar. A length of two-by-four. Rappelling gear. But enough for only one.

Smoke lined the ceiling now, and the toxic smell of it burned his lungs. They didn’t have much time.

“What are you doing?” asked Mira. “We have to get out of here.”

“The stairwells will kill us. So will the fall from one of the windows. This is our exit.” He pried the door open, seeing an open shaft below. “Shove that board between the doors to hold them open.”

She did. “How are we getting down that way?”

Adam slipped the harness on and fastened it as fast as he could. The smoke was just over his eyes now and growing thicker by the second.

He slipped the crowbar into his belt and dangled the flashlight from its wrist strap. “You’re going to hold on to me while I lower us down.”

“I’m not strong enough.”

He clipped the harness onto the line suspended in the elevator shaft. “You’ll be fine. It’ll be just like sitting on my lap.”

Before she could argue with him more, he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her close. “Arms around my neck. Legs around my waist.”

“I don’t really—”

“Do it, Mira!” He hated shouting at her, but they were out of time. There were no other options.

She did as he asked. A second later, he pushed away from the ledge with Mira clinging to him like a monkey.

The trip down was fast, but not so fast that he didn’t feel every frightened quiver that raced through her body. Each rapid breath that swept across his neck was one more reminder to be careful.

Before he touched bottom, he used the flashlight to check and make sure there were no more nasty surprises waiting for them. All he saw was dusty concrete with a few scuff marks to prove someone had come this way before.

Mira held him so tightly he could feel every inch of her curvy body plastered against him. She hid her face in the crook of his neck.

Adam put his feet on the floor and unclipped the harness from the line. She still hadn’t realized it was safe to let go, and his mouth seemed glued shut.

He wrapped his arms around her, using one to prop up her curvy backside. He knew she would let go in a second and that this contact with her would end. But until then, he would relish every second of it.

Light from his tethered flashlight bobbed around, brightening the dark space. The stench of that smoke still hovered on their clothes, but the stale air here was a welcome relief.

For a minute, he just held her, reveling in her trust. Yes, he’d tricked her, betrayed her, but in this moment, she’d forgotten all about that, and every dark little corner of his soul warmed at her show of faith in him.

Why what this one woman thought of him was so important, he had no idea, but it was. He ached for her trust. Yearned for a second chance to prove to her that he wasn’t a wholly evil man.

“It’s okay now,” he finally managed. “We’re on the ground.”

She lifted her head just enough to see that what he was saying was true. Then she looked at him, relief glowing in her canted green eyes.

Adam had never before seen anything half as beautiful as this woman’s eyes. There was something mysterious lurking there—some feminine secret he could only imagine.

Before he could sense her intent, she pressed her lips to his and kissed him.

His heart stopped. His lungs ceased to function. The rest of the world dissipated, meaningless and unimportant.

She lifted her mouth too soon; her kiss of thanks and relief was over before it had really begun. And now the look on her face shifted to an expression of shock and dismay.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

He couldn’t imagine her having
not
done it. Not now.

Her legs unwound from his waist, dangling just above the ground. “You can put me down.”

He couldn’t. If he let her go, she’d never kiss him again. He could already see her resolve hardening her mouth.

It had been so very soft only a second ago.

“Adam? I can’t reach the ground.”

He knew that. He could feel her weight in his arms, right where he wanted her to be. The sensation was strange and exciting, reminding him of the way other boys used to talk about girls when he was young. He’d never felt those things then.

But he did now.

Slowly, he forced his muscles to unclench and release her. She slid along his front until her toes reached the ground. His arms still shackled her to him, but there was nothing he could do to convince them to let her go. Not yet.

Her hands pressed against his chest in a subtle sign to move away. When he refused, she stopped pushing and relaxed inside his hold.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I honestly don’t know. Why did you kiss me?”

“I lost my head for a second. It didn’t mean anything.”

A small part of him shriveled up and died. It had meant something to him. He didn’t know what, but that she would toss the act aside so easily hurt.

That pain was the thing that saved him, allowing him to release her. Pain he knew. Understood. It was how the world worked, and the jab she’d given him reminded him of that.

He stepped away, turned his back, and pulled the crowbar from his belt. He shed the harness and went to work on the doors. As soon as he had the elevator doors open, Mira slipped out. He was right behind her.

The doors closed with a rattle, shutting him off from that secret little place where she’d kissed him.

In his mind, he tried to close the act behind another door, compartmentalizing it. Later he would take it out and study it. For now, his attention had to be focused elsewhere.

They were in a basement. He found a service entrance where deliveries had once been received. Within a couple of minutes, they were back outside, on their way to the car.

The night air was cold, clean, and so very welcome to his burning lungs. He hadn’t breathed in much of that smoke, but it had been more than enough.

“Are you having any trouble breathing?” he asked her as they neared the car.

“No. You? You were a lot closer to it.”

“I’m fine.”

They got in, and she was once again close enough to him to touch.

He didn’t.

The doors closing off the memory of her kiss shuddered and bulged.

“I’ll take you home so you can get some rest,” he said.

“Not a chance. I’m going to see Payton.”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“You say that like I care if I wake him up. The man has some questions to answer, and if that means he loses a little beauty rest, then so be it.”

“You could call.”

She shook her head, the movement stiff. “No. I’m going to look him in the eye. It’s the only chance I have at finding out if he’s lying.”

“A man with his background and training will be able to lie to you no matter what.”

“What do you know about his training?”

“Nothing for certain, but I recognize certain traits—the same ones that allowed me to lie to you without you knowing it.”

“So I’m screwed either way,” she said on a frustrated sigh. “Doesn’t matter what he says; I’ll never be able to trust it.”

“Not necessarily.”

“How’s that?”

“If he tells you what you don’t want to hear, you’ll know he’s not lying.”

“Fine. Then let’s go see Payton. I’m not getting any sleep tonight, anyway.”

Neither was Adam, but for reasons much different and more pleasant than hers.

As he drove away, the only thought in his mind was, if he got Payton to tell her the truth, would she kiss him again? With even the slightest hope of that happening again, Adam began going through his training on interrogation techniques.

He would find the truth Mira sought. One way or another.